Projects List

Climate change creates extraordinary risks, but also openings for transformation. This is especially true for the bottom billion, who are amongst the most vulnerable to changes in the climate system, while also part of many other system transformations including urbanization, new technologies, and socioeconomic change. Our challenge is to make sense of a future under climate change, working to minimize the impacts of increasing risks, while reimagining and building a more resilient future.
As a co-designer and challenge owner of KIC’s Long Termism Deep Demonstration (LTDD), the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre proposes an initial exploration on how long termism might enable humanitarian and development actors and investments to reimagine and craft transformative and resilient models for our future societies. In 2020, we will convene a series of collaborative dialogues to explore possible partnerships and areas of work with the most leverage to shift cultures and narratives towards long term mindsets rethink policies and notions of value, and support individual and collective empowerment. We will work alongside the co-design team and our existing and new networks to develop and deploy modalities of engagement for imagining, crafting, and testing future paths, identifying potential levers of change towards applying long termism in the humanitarian sector, as well as to co-design a portfolio of options to inspire the next phase of investments and activities towards a more resilient future.
Our engagement in the LTDD will be complementary but separate from our engagement in the Forging Resilient Regions DD, in terms of actors (co-designers and international humanitarian agencies for the LTDD, and challenge owners in four European regions under FRR DD) and modalities of engagement that are different depending on the issue (humanitarian system transformation in the LT DD; regional resilience in the FRR DD).

Icebreaker One (IB1) has the potential to transform industry and address the climate crisis via economic innovation. Our project will develop an open standard for data sharing in the financial sector, beginning with insurance. On implementation, it will enable industry to share data robustly, legally and securely, driving the use and adoption of artificial intelligence tools within the insurance sector.

Following the UK’s world-first work on Open Banking (which was led by Gavin Starks, IB1’s founder), we will develop a standard for sharing data that will enable the finance industry to innovate around climate risk, improve current financing products and create new ones, and create both private and public good. IB1 is convening the relevant stakeholders across industry, policy, science and asset owners to define an open standard for catalysing data access across the insurance sector.

We need better ways to share data — robustly, legally and securely — that create value, rather than leaving it in stagnant ‘data lakes’. An addressable, open, standards-based marketplace built around the needs of both the market and our climate reality will enable companies to create new, or evolve existing, financial products and services that ensure that funding results in measurably low-carbon investments.

The primary challenges are culture and business models. Organisations are stuck in legacy models that hold data ‘closed’ (negotiating access and use on a case-by-case basis) instead of taking ‘shared’ or ‘open’ approaches (using pre-emptive licensing and web-based systems). Asset owners, funders and insurers are not working with data at scale due to high transaction costs (in time, process and money) and this is limiting creativity to find new models, products and market solutions. This is holding back innovation: data is not discoverable; is not clearly licenced for use; is not in formats that people or machines can easily manipulate.

IIPP aims at a new innovation paradigm based on the idea that economic growth and innovation do not only have a rate but also a direction. The latter is a policy choice, and requires the public sector to take dynamic action that brings about structural changes in desired directions. The challenge implies going beyond the currently dominant notion of policy as simply fixing existing failures in markets; policymakers need to shape and co-create markets for long-term growth and champion the importance of mission-oriented policies. This requires building new forms of competencies and adaptive dynamic capabilities inside public institutions.

IIPP’s core abilities are in designing and co-developing the frameworks, tools, mechanisms and dynamic capabilities needed to actively co-create and shape markets for transitioning to a green, inclusive economy. We propose to partner with Climate-KIC across all 8 Deep Demonstration (from now ‘DD’) areas in order to develop, with respective public sector problem owners, new economic and governance frameworks for market shaping activities, policies and required dynamic capabilities.

The key challenge our proposal tackles is to map, trace and change traditional patterns of innovation practices in private, public and voluntary sectors. Existing innovation patterns do not necessarily produce public value. In order to re-shape innovation practice towards a green economy, we propose to work with Climate KIC and DD public sector problem owners across the following 8 lines of work to co-design new market-shaping economic and governance frameworks and policy tools that can be tested by the problem-owners:

This demonstrator project takes an innovative and novel approach to capture costs of not adapting and hence suffering frequent floods in the urban environment, which have not been undertaken anywhere. We make use of the unusually good Danish data, and use them to target two key hypotheses, evaluate them using a well-defined econometric approaches (difference-in-difference and matching based) and three different types of data.

The product is information and this information will be publicly available. The project is likely to generate a positive revenue stream for consultancy firms and contractors/entrepreneurs as more adaptation projects will be undertaken. The reduced risk is likely to reduce damage-cost which means resources can be spent on other things than replacing damaged properties.

The outcome of this KAVA will be the development of a service related to EEE/WEEE for the traceability and the geo-interoperability of WEEE data whose customers will be EIT Climate-KIC member cities, regions and NGOs.
InnoWEEE has two interrelated key objectives:
• objective 1: to increase the awareness of electric/electronic devices and the subsequent amount of EEE or WEEE collected
• objective 2: to put into practice resource efficient processes for the collected devices: EEE will be reused/refurbished while WEEE will be recycled or it will evaluate the preparation for reuse.
The target products are small appliances that will be collected through new systems and approaches able to determine if the received item can be categorized as WEEE, so to be moved to treatment plants, or as EEE, so operations to extend the life cycle of the product have to be tested.

The Deep Demonstration Just Transformations in Emilia-Romagna (Italy), working alongside with other two committed regions, will implement a transformation logic that aspires to enact social, climatic, economic, political and democratic justice.
Emilia-Romagna is one of the five Italian regions characterized by the most frequent exceeding of daily limit values relating to particulate matter and, as problem owner, needs to reinforce its policy instruments with innovative approaches to ensure an ecologic and just transformation to a low-carbon region with good air quality standards for the population.
Led by ART-ER and EIT Climate-KIC as co-designer, in partnership with Fondazione per l’Innovazione Urbana and UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), in 2020 the Emilia-Romagna DD Just transformations will lay the foundations for a transformative systemic change in Emilia-Romagna.
ART-ER together with project partners, EIT Climate-KIC and the problem owner will:
– Integrate Just Transformations methodology with regional policy process identifying priority challenges to be faced;
– Develop a Deep Listening Methodology;
– Set up a monitoring, evaluation and learning framework to to estimate the impacts of the Just Transformation on citizens, businesses, and regional economics;
– Communicate and diffuse learning to other problem-owners and to the regional community.
Emilia-Romagna DD expects to contribute to meeting Impact goals 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13 of EIT Climate-KIC Theory of Change, and Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, 7,8,9, 10, 11, 13 and 17 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development adopted by the United Nations Member States in 2015.

The way that cities currently work is through building a climate plan and then identifying isolated solutions to work towards an end goal. The work through the Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration is starting from the point of the city’s existing climate plan, but then challenging the model of delivery, as well as some of the underlying assumptions within it; the aim of which is to provide for a more aggressive approach to accelerating the route to net zero (this might include new governance models centred around climate transition, new processes to engage citizens or the development of financing models). This KAVA will therefore take some time to work through the intent and frame stages of the Deep Demonstration methodology, avoiding a rush to settle on solutions, but working out what the city is aiming for in the way of outcomes. Once this has been completed then the city cohort will be in a good position to go out to the EIT Climate-KIC community (and the wider market) with a call to action – at this stage we will build a portfolio of experiments with Krakow. We will raise funds to complement the EIT grant and select a portfolio of projects that will produce new products, processes, services, tools, start-ups etc, which will be supplied to the challenge owner, associated customers and other similar stakeholders.

Developed by EcoAct and I4CE, the project aims at designing the first methodology and pilot project for coastal carbon sinks management in French oversea territories. This methodology will be submitted to “label bas-carbone” which was launched in Apr 2019 by the French Ministry of Low-Carbon Transition. It will facilitate the development of mangroves restoration and protection projects, by incentivizing public and private investments. Worldwide, only four mangrove projects are currently co-funded by carbon finance.

France is the second EU country in terms of mangroves surface. To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, its National Low-Carbon Strategy, adopted in Dec 2018, specifies that forestry/mangroves present strategic potential to reinforce carbon sequestration and avoid further emissions associated to ecosystem degradation. French natural carbon sinks will need to double their sequestration capacity from an estimated 40 MtCO2e in 2016, to 75-95 MtCO2e in 2050. The methodology development will support the zero carbon objective the “Overseas Trajectory 5.0” policy which was adopted in Apr 2019.
Some local authorities, companies and even citizens are ready to invest in “blue carbon” projects as a voluntary climate action contributing to the national climate ambition and allowing to claim their own carbon neutrality. To fund such initiatives in France, investors will need certified quality and environmental integrity.

To tailor a methodology that fits the French specific contexts, a pilot project will be set-up. Local partners will be involved and main stakeholders will be consulted. A benchmark of international certification schemes will be conducted. The proposed methodology will be designed in coherence with the label bas-carbone. Multiple co-benefits will be assessed to monitor benefits for the tourism, fishing and insurance sectors. These include marine and land-based biodiversity, livelihoods of coastal populations and infrastructure protection.

The project aims at designing a methodology to coastal carbon sinks projects in French overseas territories, for the “label bas-carbone”. It will allow to develop mangroves restoration and protection projects, with positives impacts on ecosystem services, by incentivizing public and private investments. To test the methodology, a pilot project will be set-up, with local partners involved and stakeholders consulted. It will serve different funding streams, including carbon markets, green bonds.

The Landscape Metropolis strategy was born 3 years ago by a group of Ferrara stakeholders.
It aims at enhancing the landscape, which is seen as an infrastructure, fostering the regeneration of depopulated areas, and the connection between the city of Ferrara and its suburban areas through an intermodal-sustainable mobility network.
The nearly 350.000 concerned residents will be shown that going to work/to school every day without own private vehicles it’s feasible through making available and effectively experiment sustainable mobility networks made of cycle lanes-waterways-hybrid buses-light rails.
In parallel it’s time to convince and motivate an increasing and relevant number of people to adopt those mobility options through granular and engaging awareness raising campaigns The project will assess its impacts through reliable tools. Improved, tuned and tested awareness campaings tools by FBK and the new passengers monitoring system on the buses by DEDAGROUP PS will be developed.

The purpose of the Deep Demonstration is to create and design a new roadmap to enable transformational change, which is a key feature in EIT Climate-KIC’s “Transformation in Time” strategy. Deep Demonstrations are therefore intended to offer a showcase of a zero-net emissions, a resilient future and highlight the ways that innovation across whole systems can unlock the change that our society now so desperately needs.

The city of Châlons-en-champagne suffers of a downward spiral linked to a significant demographic decline, the economic crisis and the departure of two major employers. The mayor of Châlons-en-Champagne, because of the geographical location of its city in the heart of large French agricultural regions would like to make its municipatliy a “World Reference Center for Agriculture”. Planet A was therefore created in order to fulfill this ambition, as to implement innovative agriculture and accelerate the new agricultural revolution by sharing knowledge and learnings.

This is the no-cost extension from the Deep Demonstration Design activities initiatied in 2019 for the Champagne Landscape Ecosystem, in France.
Within this activity, l’Instutite national de la recherché agronomique (P032) leads on a set of activities to:

i. Further analyse the Champagne landscape ecosystem, with a focus on the challenge-owner, Planet A, with the political support of Chalons-en-Champagne region
ii. Further engage with (local) relevant stakeholders to help shape their vision of a deep transformation on how to shift rural landscapes from carbon sources to carbon sinks.
iii. Identify potential innovation experiments
iv. Enable the potential delivery of a portfolio, including the idenfication of complementary funding schemes, the monitoring of transition requirements and impacts

Scotland is committed to net zero C by 2045. To deliver on this, Scotland’s land-based sector, landowners, interest groups, and civil society need to work together at a scale not previously attempted. Our project is to challenge and support them towards actions that to meet this target, including addressing barriers, enablers or levers that need to change from local to national scales. These include systems reorganisation and planning, integrated policy development, novel business models, creative investment options, appropriate legislation and regulation, favourable incentives, transparent knowledge generation and sharing through research and monitoring, and behavioural and cultural change through meaningful participatory engagement across society.
The Deep Demonstration Frame phase will explore, create, and design plausible pathways for driving transformational change across landscapes to respond to zero-carbon emissions alongside other co-benefits following a systems methodology. Our work will identify hypotheses on plausible strategies for how we might drive and leverage transformational innovation across whole systems to unlock the integrated political, social, economic, developmental, and environmental changes we desperately need.
We will lead on a set of activities that foster creative engagement and co-development of innovative visions for systems transformation. This will be an iterative co-design process crucially drawing on expertise, knowledge and perspectives many stakeholders and challenge owners across the socioecological systems landscape. We specifically seek to identify opportunities for leveraging breakthrough possibilities that have the potential to deliver cascading positive impacts across transformed systems. This includes articulating imaginative high-risk high-reward innovation opportunities that encourage and foster widespread change be realising multiple and shared benefits across sectors.

Groundwork will be laid to kickstart a service for the large-scale renovation of the Zagreb built environment, ensuring local economic development, job creation and future-proofing the living environment. The project will deliver an innovative, scalable financing mechanism for deep building retrofit that does not add to personal debt that stimulates collective action in an affordable way.
Zagreb is recovering from a devastating earthquake and is suffering badly economically from the COVID crisis. Individuals have little ability to raise finance and the energy transition risks stalling due to the lack of investment.
The project will be developed with a wide citizen engagement process and a common vision for a carbon-neutral “community” and raised awareness, vital for aggregation of demand.
Specifically the project will:
Develop the business model needed to deliver a Phase 1 project of 250 homes in 2021, 10,000 homes by 2023 and 100,000 homes by 2026, creating 300 jobs in 2021, 7,700 by 2023 and 59,700 by 2026 [based on BPIE research].
Effectively engage multiple stakeholders to accelerate deployment (mapping, analysis of barriers / connections) driven by a common vision.
Design a citizen engagement process and implement a user research-survey with a sample of inhabitants.
Identify Phase 1 properties where transformation is required whilst ensuring a “just transition”, avoiding gentrification in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Design the market form(s), supply chain and contracting innovation needed to drive re-training and skills development enabling widespread job creation
Design the financial structure and institutional arrangements required by public institutions and private national/international investors in order to create a leverage effect; multiply the impact and accelerate deployment.
The model will be refined in Zagreb and co-aligned with a similar proposal being developed in Milan and Madrid – Cities both widely affected by the COVID Crisis.

The way that cities currently work is through building a climate plan and then identifying isolated solutions to work towards an end goal. The work through the Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration is starting from the point of the city’s existing climate plan, but then challenging the model of delivery, as well as some of the underlying assumptions within it; the aim of which is to provide for a more aggressive approach to accelerating the route to net zero (this might include new governance models centred around climate transition, new processes to engage citizens or the development of financing models). This KAVA will therefore take some time to work through the intent and frame stages of the Deep Demonstration methodology, avoiding a rush to settle on solutions, but working out what the city is aiming for in the way of outcomes. Once this has been completed then the city cohort will be in a good position to go out to the EIT Climate-KIC community (and the wider market) with a call to action – at this stage we will build a portfolio of experiments with Leuven. We will raise funds to complement the EIT grant and select a portfolio of projects that will produce new products, processes, services, tools, start-ups etc, which will be supplied to the challenge owner, associated customers and other similar stakeholders.

The project aims to demonstrate the validity of the use of second-life batteries from e-mobility in energy storage systems

The need for urgent and more intensive actions against climate change is broadly recognized. In support of this agenda, this project presents a simple yet profound vision: a circular, responsible and just battery value chain is one of the major near-term drivers to realize the 2°C Paris Agreement goal in the transport and power sectors, setting course towards achieving the 1.5°C goal if complemented with other technologies and collaborative efforts (1).

With the right conditions in place, batteries are a systemic enabler of a major shift to bring transportation and power to greenhouse gas neutrality by coupling both sectors for the first time in history and transforming renewable energy from an alternative source to a reliable base. According to a report on batteries value chain (1), batteries could enable 30% of the required reductions in carbon emissions in the transport and power sectors, provide access to electricity to 600 million people who currently have no access, and create 10 million safe and sustainable jobs around the world.

This opportunity can only be achieved sustainably through a systemic approach across social, environmental and economic dimensions. Batteries can serve numerous purposes. Indeed, although batteries are required to help tackle climate change, this cannot be achieved without a fundamental change in the way materials are sourced and this technology is produced and used.

This project represents a small but necessary step towards the realization of that vision: by developing and installing a 2nd-life storage system, build out of batteries brought from a shared mobility service, into a sustainable district.

(1) http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_Vision_for_a_Sustainable_Battery_Value_Chain_in_2030_Report.pdf